TÜV SÜD Takes the Lead to Address the Challenges of Smart Manufacturing Transformation

On November 9th, TÜV SÜD, one of the world’s leading testing, certification, and inspection organisations, held an industrial summit in Shanghai, themed “Smart Manufacturing in China – Inspiring trust in a changing world”. With a focus on cyber security and Industrie 4.0, TÜV SÜD experts and key industry stakeholders explored insights and best practices to enable digital innovation in the Chinese smart manufacturing field.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) forms the backbone of every company as it supports critical processes and operations. Critical systems and large volumes of sensitive data need to be protected as vulnerabilities may impact business continuity and damage brand reputation.

Cyberattacks against ICT security systems are on the rise, with potentially costly consequences for companies, their customers and executives. As cyber threats and ICT security challenges continue to evolve, regulations and requirements have been implemented to mitigate them. Businesses and organisations need to ensure that their ICT security measures are constantly reviewed and kept up-to-date to minimise business disruption and establish trust in the security and reliability of their systems.

To address these challenges, TÜV SÜD is taking the lead to establish industrial conversations both locally and globally. This event is the second event in a global series that is being conducted across Singapore, and China, providing a platform for businesses, organisations, and academia in various industries to share insights on accelerating the global smart manufacturing process.

“In this age of uncertainty brought about by technology disruptions, trust enables us to partner with each other, lowering uncertainty so that we can start exchanging value for progress.” commented Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Stepken, Chairman of the Board of Management, TÜV SÜD AG.

In addition, TÜV SÜD has established two Digital Service Centres of Excellence in Singapore and Germany respectively to focus on the development in smart infrastructure, Industrie 4.0, or other smart sectors. Through pilot projects in the CoE, the experts support their customers to realise innovative solutions while ensuring security, functionality, reliability, and interoperability. Meanwhile, TÜV SÜD is a member of the SmartFactoryKL technology initiative, which tests the practical use of innovative information and communications technologies in industrial production. Within this initiative TÜV SÜD’s experts focused on the interface standards, interoperability, functional safety and IT security for entire industrial plants and developed new, modular certification schemes for flexible plant structures.

“Both initiatives, including Industrie 4.0 and Made in China 2025, launched by the German and Chinese governments respectively, demonstrated that the key to the revolution in manufacturing is digital transformation,” said Dr.-Ing. Robert Puto, Vice President Product Service, TÜV SÜD Greater China. “However, the construction of intelligent plants will be accompanied by the increasing complexity of data and processes. It is crucial for manufacturers to ensure high cyber security standards during the transition to smart technology. As a global organisation with an unparalleled combination of industry and digital expertise and experience, TÜV SÜD experts ensure that systems are not only technically sound, but can also work smoothly in real-world applications.”

TÜV SÜD is working closely with customers in traditional industries to realise their digital transformation journey by integrating intelligent, mobile, and interconnected devices to their operations. One of the best practices presented during the event is Siemens, the first company globally to receive a TÜV SÜD Security Certificate for a product based on IEC 62443-4-1 and IEC 62443-3-3 in November 2016. In May 2017, Siemens announced commercial release of its Cyber Security Operation Center (CSOC) service as part of its Cyber Defense Center (CDC) in Suzhou, China. The Center underwent the ISO/IEC 27001 audit and received the certificate from TÜV SÜD.